diff --git a/src/encoder.py b/src/encoder.py
index 5068cc6..03e0ce2 100644
--- a/src/encoder.py
+++ b/src/encoder.py
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ class Encoder:
 def get_encoder(model_name):
     with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'encoder.json'), 'r') as f:
         encoder = json.load(f)
-    with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r') as f:
+    with open(os.path.join('models', model_name, 'vocab.bpe'), 'r', encoding="utf-8") as f:
         bpe_data = f.read()
     bpe_merges = [tuple(merge_str.split()) for merge_str in bpe_data.split('\n')[1:-1]]
     return Encoder(