diff --git a/decanlp/utils/embeddings.py b/decanlp/utils/embeddings.py
index 1ce32b67..5b3dfee6 100644
--- a/decanlp/utils/embeddings.py
+++ b/decanlp/utils/embeddings.py
@@ -69,7 +69,9 @@ class AlmondEmbeddings(torchtext.vocab.Vectors):
 def load_embeddings(args, logger=_logger, load_almond_embeddings=True):
     logger.info(f'Getting pretrained word vectors')
 
-    if args.locale == 'en':
+    language = args.locale.split('-')[0]
+
+    if language == 'en':
         char_vectors = torchtext.vocab.CharNGram(cache=args.embeddings)
         if args.small_glove:
             glove_vectors = torchtext.vocab.GloVe(cache=args.embeddings, name="6B", dim=50)
@@ -80,7 +82,7 @@ def load_embeddings(args, logger=_logger, load_almond_embeddings=True):
     # Chinese word embeddings
     else:
         # default to fastText
-        vectors = [torchtext.vocab.FastText(cache=args.embeddings, language=args.locale)]
+        vectors = [torchtext.vocab.FastText(cache=args.embeddings, language=language)]
 
     if load_almond_embeddings and args.almond_type_embeddings:
         vectors.append(AlmondEmbeddings())