diff --git a/spacy/multi_words.py b/spacy/multi_words.py
index 8f8cda2b9..748086d30 100644
--- a/spacy/multi_words.py
+++ b/spacy/multi_words.py
@@ -4,5 +4,5 @@ class RegexMerger(object):
 
     def __call__(self, tokens):
         for tag, entity_type, regex in self.regexes:
-            for m in regex.finditer(unicode(tokens)):
+            for m in regex.finditer(tokens.string):
                 tokens.merge(m.start(), m.end(), tag, m.group(), entity_type)
diff --git a/spacy/tokens.pyx b/spacy/tokens.pyx
index 8cb86c7ec..411f5cd95 100644
--- a/spacy/tokens.pyx
+++ b/spacy/tokens.pyx
@@ -136,6 +136,10 @@ cdef class Tokens:
         cdef const TokenC* last = &self.data[self.length - 1]
         return self._string[:last.idx + last.lex.length]
 
+    @property
+    def string(self):
+        return unicode(self)
+
     @property
     def ents(self):
         """Yields named-entity Span objects."""