diff --git a/neuralmonkey/processors/wordpiece.py b/neuralmonkey/processors/wordpiece.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b758bc22d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/neuralmonkey/processors/wordpiece.py
@@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
+"""Loose reimplementation of the t2t tokenizer.
+
+Original code:
+https://github.com/tensorflow/tensor2tensor/blob/v1.5.5/tensor2tensor/data_generators/tokenizer.py
+
+Provides a WordpiecePreprocessor, a higher order function which takes a
+vocabulary object and returns a preprocessor, and a WordpiecePostprocessor.
+
+Note that the latter is not a higher order function and can be used directly
+without making a new section in the configuration.
+"""
+from typing import List, Callable, Set
+import re
+
+from typeguard import check_argument_types
+from neuralmonkey.vocabulary import Vocabulary
+
+
+UNESCAPE_REGEX = re.compile(r"\\u|\\\\|\\([0-9]+);")
+
+
+def escape_token(token: str, alphabet: Set[str]) -> str:
+    """Escapes the token in the t2t fasion.
+
+    Underscores are regarded as an end of a token, so they must be escaped.
+    Additionally, they/we escape also the OOA (out-of-alphabet) characters
+    using their unicode code.
+    """
+    esc_token = token.replace("\\", "\\\\")  # replace 1 backslash with 2
+    esc_token = esc_token.replace("_", "\\u")  # replace underscore with "\u"
+
+    # replace OOA symbol `s` with \1234; where 1234 is `ord(s)`
+    characters = [c if c in alphabet and c != "\n" else "\\{};".format(ord(c))
+                  for c in token]  # not sure about the "\n"-part
+
+    return "".join(characters) + "_"
+
+
+def unescape_token(escaped_token: str) -> str:
+    """Inverse function for escape_token."""
+
+    # Ends with underscore -> remove it
+    token = escaped_token
+    token = token[:-1] if token.endswith("_") else token
+
+    def match(m):
+        if m.group(1) is None:
+            return "_" if m.group(0) == "\\u" else "\\"
+
+        try:
+            return chr(int(m.group(1)))
+        except (ValueError, OverflowError):
+            return u"\u3013"  # Unicode for undefined character.
+
+    # The substitution works because of the left-to-right nature of matching
+    return UNESCAPE_REGEX.sub(match, token)
+
+
+def wordpiece_encode(sentence: List[str], vocabulary: Vocabulary) -> List[str]:
+    """Convert tokens to subtokens using a vocabulary of subtokens.
+
+    A greedy implementation, as in t2t referenced above.
+
+    We search for the longest subtoken available in the vocabulary from left to
+    right.
+    """
+    tokens = []
+    for token in sentence:
+        esc_token = escape_token(token, vocabulary.alphabet)
+
+        subtokens = []
+        current_subtoken_start = 0
+        token_len = len(esc_token)
+
+        while current_subtoken_start < len(esc_token):
+
+            # TODO: they optimize this by ranging from
+            # min(token_len, max_subtoken_len + start)
+            # this can be achieved by saving the len of longest word in vocab
+            for end in range(token_len, current_subtoken_start, -1):
+                subtoken = esc_token[current_subtoken_start:end]
+
+                if subtoken in vocabulary.word_to_index:
+                    subtokens.append(subtoken)
+                    current_subtoken_start = end
+                    break
+            else:  # executed if the loop is not exited by the break statement
+                raise AssertionError(
+                    "No token substring found in the vocab ({})."
+                    .format(esc_token[current_subtoken_start:]))
+
+        # TODO: they also optimize this by caching the segmentation of the
+        # escaped tokens.
+        tokens.extend(subtokens)
+    return tokens
+
+
+def wordpiece_decode(sentence: List[str]) -> List[str]:
+    """Postprocess the wordpieces into a sentence.
+
+    First, retokenize the sentence - join and split around underscores.
+    Second, unescape tokens throwing away any empty tokens encountered.
+    """
+    retokenized = "".join(sentence).split("_")
+    unescaped = [unescape_token(tok) for tok in retokenized if tok]
+    return [tok for tok in unescaped if tok]
+
+
+def wordpiece_decode_batch(sentences: List[List[str]]) -> List[List[str]]:
+    return [wordpiece_decode(s) for s in sentences]
+
+
+def get_wordpiece_preprocessor(
+        vocabulary: Vocabulary) -> Callable[[List[str]], List[str]]:
+    check_argument_types()
+    return lambda s: wordpiece_encode(s, vocabulary)
+
+
+# pylint: disable=invalid-name
+# Syntactic sugar for configuration
+WordpiecePreprocessor = get_wordpiece_preprocessor
+WordpiecePostprocessor = wordpiece_decode_batch
diff --git a/neuralmonkey/readers/plain_text_reader.py b/neuralmonkey/readers/plain_text_reader.py
index 6c1d95e0b..4fa7ac111 100644
--- a/neuralmonkey/readers/plain_text_reader.py
+++ b/neuralmonkey/readers/plain_text_reader.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 import csv
 import io
 import sys
+import unicodedata
 
 from neuralmonkey.logging import warn
 
@@ -40,6 +41,52 @@ def reader(files: List[str]) -> Iterable[List[str]]:
     return reader
 
 
+def t2t_tokenized_text_reader(encoding: str = "utf-8") -> PlainTextFileReader:
+    """Get a tokenizing reader for plain text.
+
+    Tokenization is inspired by the tensor2tensor tokenizer:
+    https://github.com/tensorflow/tensor2tensor/blob/v1.5.5/tensor2tensor/data_generators/text_encoder.py
+
+    The text is split to groups of consecutive alphanumeric or non-alphanumeric
+    tokens, dropping single spaces inside the text. Basically the goal here is
+    to preserve the whitespace around weird characters and whitespace on weird
+    positions (beginning and end of the text).
+    """
+    alphanumeric_charset = set(
+        chr(i) for i in range(sys.maxunicode)
+        if (unicodedata.category(chr(i)).startswith("L") or
+            unicodedata.category(chr(i)).startswith("N")))
+
+    def reader(files: List[str]) -> Iterable[List[str]]:
+        lines = string_reader(encoding)
+        for line in lines(files):
+            if not line:
+                yield []
+
+            tokens = []
+            is_alnum = [ch in alphanumeric_charset for ch in line]
+            current_token_start = 0
+
+            for pos in range(1, len(line)):
+                # Boundary of alnum and non-alnum character groups
+                if is_alnum[pos] != is_alnum[pos - 1]:
+                    token = line[current_token_start:pos]
+
+                    # Drop single space if it's not on the beginning
+                    if token != " " or current_token_start == 0:
+                        tokens.append(token)
+
+                    current_token_start = pos
+
+            # Add a final token (even if it's a single space)
+            final_token = line[current_token_start:]
+            tokens.append(final_token)
+
+            yield tokens
+
+    return reader
+
+
 def column_separated_reader(
         column: int, delimiter: str = "\t", quotechar: str = None,
         encoding: str = "utf-8") -> PlainTextFileReader:
@@ -87,4 +134,5 @@ def tsv_reader(column: int):
 
 # pylint: disable=invalid-name
 UtfPlainTextReader = tokenized_text_reader()
+T2TReader = t2t_tokenized_text_reader()
 # pylint: enable=invalid-name
diff --git a/neuralmonkey/tests/test_readers.py b/neuralmonkey/tests/test_readers.py
index 5a5b15c83..205b1ba2b 100644
--- a/neuralmonkey/tests/test_readers.py
+++ b/neuralmonkey/tests/test_readers.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 import numpy as np
 
 from neuralmonkey.readers.string_vector_reader import get_string_vector_reader
+from neuralmonkey.readers.plain_text_reader import T2TReader
 
 STRING_INTS = """
 1   2 3
@@ -96,5 +97,27 @@ def tearDown(self):
         self.tmpfile_ints_fine.close()
 
 
+class TestT2TReader(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def setUp(self):
+        self.reader = T2TReader
+
+    def test_reader(self):
+        text = "Ich bin  der čermák -=- - !!! alfonso "
+        gold_tokens = ["Ich", "bin", "  ", "der", "čermák", " -=- - !!! ",
+                       "alfonso", " "]
+
+        tmpfile = _make_file(text)
+
+        read = []
+        for line in self.reader([tmpfile.name]):
+            read.append(line)
+
+        tmpfile.close()
+
+        self.assertEqual(len(read), 1)
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(read[0], gold_tokens)
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
     unittest.main()
diff --git a/neuralmonkey/tests/test_wordpiece.py b/neuralmonkey/tests/test_wordpiece.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..5f9916359
--- /dev/null
+++ b/neuralmonkey/tests/test_wordpiece.py
@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3.5
+import unittest
+
+from neuralmonkey.vocabulary import Vocabulary
+from neuralmonkey.processors.wordpiece import (
+    WordpiecePreprocessor, WordpiecePostprocessor)
+
+CORPUS = [
+    "the colorless ideas slept furiously",
+    "pooh slept all night",
+    "working class hero is something to be",
+    "I am the working class walrus",
+    "walrus for president"
+]
+
+TOKENIZED_CORPUS = [[a + "_" for a in s.split()] for s in CORPUS]
+
+# Create list of characters required to process the CORPUS with wordpieces
+CORPUS_CHARS = [x for c in set("".join(CORPUS)) for x in [c, c + "_"]]
+ESCAPE_CHARS = "\\_u0987654321;"
+C_CARON = "\\269;"
+A_ACUTE = "225"
+
+
+class TestWordpieces(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    @classmethod
+    def setUpClass(cls):
+        vocabulary = Vocabulary()
+
+        for c in CORPUS_CHARS + list(ESCAPE_CHARS):
+            vocabulary.add_word(c)
+
+        for sent in TOKENIZED_CORPUS:
+            vocabulary.add_tokenized_text(sent)
+
+        vocabulary.add_word(C_CARON)
+        vocabulary.add_word(A_ACUTE)
+
+        cls.preprocessor = WordpiecePreprocessor(vocabulary)
+        cls.postprocessor = WordpiecePostprocessor
+
+    def test_preprocess_ok(self):
+        raw = "I am the walrus".split()
+        gold = "I_ am_ the_ walrus_".split()
+
+        preprocessed = TestWordpieces.preprocessor(raw)
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(preprocessed, gold)
+
+    def test_preprocess_split(self):
+        raw = "Ich bin der walrus".split()
+        gold = "I c h_ b i n_ d e r_ walrus_".split()
+
+        preprocessed = TestWordpieces.preprocessor(raw)
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(preprocessed, gold)
+
+    def test_preprocess_unk(self):
+        raw = "Ich bin der čermák".split()
+        gold = "I c h_ b i n_ d e r_ \\269; e r m \\ 225 ; k_".split()
+
+        preprocessed = TestWordpieces.preprocessor(raw)
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(preprocessed, gold)
+
+    def test_postprocess_ok(self):
+        output = "I_ am_ the_ walrus_".split()
+        gold = ["I am the walrus".split()]
+
+        postprocessed = TestWordpieces.postprocessor([output])
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(postprocessed, gold)
+
+    def test_postprocess_split(self):
+        output = "I c h_ b i n_ d e r_ walrus_".split()
+        gold = ["Ich bin der walrus".split()]
+
+        postprocessed = TestWordpieces.postprocessor([output])
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(postprocessed, gold)
+
+    def test_postprocess_unk(self):
+        output = "I c h_ b i n_ d e r_ \\269; e r m \\ 225 ; k_".split()
+        gold = ["Ich bin der čermák".split()]
+
+        postprocessed = TestWordpieces.postprocessor([output])
+        self.assertSequenceEqual(postprocessed, gold)
+
+    # TODO (#669): implement wordpiece generator
+    @unittest.skip("not implemented yet")
+    def test_make_wordpieces(self):
+        pass
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    unittest.main()
diff --git a/neuralmonkey/vocabulary.py b/neuralmonkey/vocabulary.py
index c07fd1351..b497aafe6 100644
--- a/neuralmonkey/vocabulary.py
+++ b/neuralmonkey/vocabulary.py
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ def from_wordlist(path: str,
 
     Arguments:
         path: The path to the wordlist file
-        encoding: The encoding of the merge file (defaults to UTF-8)
+        encoding: The encoding of the wordlist file (defaults to UTF-8)
         contains_header: if the file have a header on first line
         contains_frequencies: if the file contains frequencies in second column
 
@@ -111,6 +111,39 @@ def from_wordlist(path: str,
     return vocabulary
 
 
+def from_t2t_vocabulary(path: str,
+                        encoding: str = "utf-8") -> "Vocabulary":
+    """Load a vocabulary generated during tensor2tensor training.
+
+    Arguments:
+        path: The path to the vocabulary file.
+        encoding: The encoding of the vocabulary file (defaults to UTF-8).
+
+    Returns:
+        The new Vocabulary instantce.
+    """
+    vocabulary = Vocabulary()
+
+    with open(path, encoding=encoding) as wordlist:
+        for line in wordlist:
+            line = line.strip()
+
+            # T2T vocab tends to wrap words in single quotes
+            if ((line.startswith("'") and line.endswith("'")) or
+                    (line.startswith('"') and line.endswith('"'))):
+                line = line[1:-1]
+
+            if line in ["<pad>", "<EOS>"]:
+                continue
+
+            vocabulary.add_word(line)
+
+    log("Vocabulary form wordlist loaded, containing {} words"
+        .format(len(vocabulary)))
+    vocabulary.log_sample()
+    return vocabulary
+
+
 def from_nematus_json(path: str, max_size: int = None,
                       pad_to_max_size: bool = False) -> "Vocabulary":
     """Load vocabulary from Nematus JSON format.
@@ -295,6 +328,7 @@ def __init__(self, tokenized_text: List[str] = None,
         self.word_to_index = {}  # type: Dict[str, int]
         self.index_to_word = []  # type: List[str]
         self.word_count = {}  # type: Dict[str, int]
+        self.alphabet = {tok for tok in _SPECIAL_TOKENS}
 
         # flag if the word count are in use
         self.correct_counts = False
@@ -339,8 +373,13 @@ def add_word(self, word: str, occurences: int = 1) -> None:
             self.word_to_index[word] = len(self.index_to_word)
             self.index_to_word.append(word)
             self.word_count[word] = 0
+            if word not in _SPECIAL_TOKENS:
+                self.add_characters(word)
         self.word_count[word] += occurences
 
+    def add_characters(self, word: str) -> None:
+        self.alphabet |= {c for c in word}
+
     def add_tokenized_text(self, tokenized_text: List[str]) -> None:
         """Add words from a list to the vocabulary.