Accusative or dative, that is the question

For years I couldn’t reliably choose between „ich gehe in den Wald“ and „ich gehe im Wald spazieren„. Accusative or dative, depending on whether you’re going there or already there. I picked one and hoped.

Nobody ever failed to turn up for the walk.

Grammar carries a small part of what you mean. The words carry the rest. Wald, and kommst du mit, and the invitation is complete, whichever ending I chose.

Your English works the same way. When you hesitate over a tense or a preposition, the person listening is following the words, and the words have already told them what you mean.

Quick win: Next time you stop to choose between two grammar forms, take the first one and keep going. The sentence around it already says what you mean.