Learn French: Nous lisons l'horoscope pour préparer l'avenir. - We read the horoscope to prepare for the future.

In English, you "prepare for" something, but the French verb préparer takes a direct object. You directly "prepare the future," so no extra preposition like pour or à is needed between the verb and the noun.

Why do we use "pour" before "préparer"?

When you use the preposition pour followed by an infinitive verb (like préparer), it means "in order to" or "so as to." Here, it explains the purpose of the action: we read the horoscope "in order to prepare" the future.

Could I use "le futur" instead of "l'avenir" here?

You could, but l'avenir is much more natural in this context. While both mean "the future," l'avenir typically refers to personal events, life paths, and the destiny that lies ahead of individuals (which fits perfectly with reading a horoscope). Le futur is more often used for the broader, distant future of the world, or as a grammatical tense.

Why is it "l'horoscope" instead of "le horoscope"?

The word horoscope starts with a "mute h" (h muet), meaning it behaves exactly like a vowel in French grammar. Because of this, the masculine article le drops its "e" and contracts into l'.