diff --git a/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.cpp b/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.cpp
index ebbc1a506..556cadd84 100644
--- a/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.cpp
+++ b/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.cpp
@@ -107,13 +107,24 @@ void Tokenizer::pad_tokens(std::vector<int>& tokens,
 
         if (final_length > out_tokens.size()) {
             const size_t pad_count = final_length - out_tokens.size();
-            out_tokens.insert(out_tokens.end(), pad_count, PAD_TOKEN_ID);
-
-            if (use_weights) {
-                out_weights.insert(out_weights.end(), pad_count, 1.0f);
-            }
-            if (use_mask) {
-                out_mask.insert(out_mask.end(), pad_count, 0.0f);
+            if (pad_left) {
+                out_tokens.insert(out_tokens.begin(), pad_count, PAD_TOKEN_ID);
+
+                if (use_weights) {
+                    out_weights.insert(out_weights.begin(), pad_count, 1.0f);
+                }
+                if (use_mask) {
+                    out_mask.insert(out_mask.begin(), pad_count, 0.0f);
+                }
+            } else {
+                out_tokens.insert(out_tokens.end(), pad_count, PAD_TOKEN_ID);
+
+                if (use_weights) {
+                    out_weights.insert(out_weights.end(), pad_count, 1.0f);
+                }
+                if (use_mask) {
+                    out_mask.insert(out_mask.end(), pad_count, 0.0f);
+                }
             }
         }
     };
diff --git a/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.h b/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.h
index 21ba067df..e044285bb 100644
--- a/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.h
+++ b/src/tokenizers/tokenizer.h
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ class Tokenizer {
     std::vector<std::string> special_tokens;
     bool add_bos_token = false;
     bool add_eos_token = false;
+    bool pad_left      = false;
     std::string end_of_word_suffix;
 
     virtual std::string decode_token(int token_id) const = 0;