What is a preterite? I am very confused on this. Is a preterite something that describes past events?

Question

For example, When I was younger, I liked visiting my grandparents house.

If so, what would be the preterite in the sentence? Would it be younger?

Answer 1

From the Wikipedia article on Preterite:

"The preterite (in American English also preterit) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past. In general, it combines the perfective aspect (event viewed as a single whole; not to be confused with the similarly named perfect) with the past tense, and may thus also be termed the perfective past."

In your sentence, the preterite is "liked ."