diff --git a/bin/import_ts.py b/bin/import_ts.py
index a2d061ca..a6f1ff00 100755
--- a/bin/import_ts.py
+++ b/bin/import_ts.py
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function
 
 # Make sure we can import stuff from util/
 # This script needs to be run from the root of the DeepSpeech repository
+import argparse
 import os
 import re
 import sys
@@ -11,6 +12,7 @@ import sys
 sys.path.insert(1, os.path.join(sys.path[0], '..'))
 
 import csv
+import unidecode
 import zipfile
 
 from os import path
@@ -25,7 +27,7 @@ ARCHIVE_DIR_NAME = 'ts_' + ARCHIVE_NAME
 ARCHIVE_URL = 'https://s3.eu-west-3.amazonaws.com/audiocorp/releases/' + ARCHIVE_NAME + '.zip'
 
 
-def _download_and_preprocess_data(target_dir):
+def _download_and_preprocess_data(target_dir, english_compatible=False):
     # Making path absolute
     target_dir = path.abspath(target_dir)
     # Conditionally download data
@@ -33,7 +35,8 @@ def _download_and_preprocess_data(target_dir):
     # Conditionally extract archive data
     _maybe_extract(target_dir, ARCHIVE_DIR_NAME, archive_path)
     # Conditionally convert TrainingSpeech data to DeepSpeech CSVs and wav
-    _maybe_convert_sets(target_dir, ARCHIVE_DIR_NAME)
+    _maybe_convert_sets(target_dir, ARCHIVE_DIR_NAME, english_compatible=english_compatible)
+
 
 def _maybe_extract(target_dir, extracted_data, archive_path):
     # If target_dir/extracted_data does not exist, extract archive in target_dir
@@ -47,7 +50,8 @@ def _maybe_extract(target_dir, extracted_data, archive_path):
     else:
         print('Found directory "%s" - not extracting it from archive.' % archive_path)
 
-def _maybe_convert_sets(target_dir, extracted_data):
+
+def _maybe_convert_sets(target_dir, extracted_data, english_compatible=False):
     extracted_dir = path.join(target_dir, extracted_data)
     # override existing CSV with normalized one
     target_csv_template = os.path.join(target_dir, 'ts_' + ARCHIVE_NAME + '_{}.csv')
@@ -70,7 +74,7 @@ def _maybe_convert_sets(target_dir, extracted_data):
                 test_writer.writeheader()
 
                 for i, item in enumerate(data):
-                    transcript = validate_label(cleanup_transcript(item['text']))
+                    transcript = validate_label(cleanup_transcript(item['text'], english_compatible=english_compatible))
                     if not transcript:
                         continue
                     wav_filename = os.path.join(target_dir, extracted_data, item['path'])
@@ -92,12 +96,22 @@ PUNCTUATIONS_REG = re.compile(r"[°\-,;!?.()\[\]*…—]")
 MULTIPLE_SPACES_REG = re.compile(r'\s{2,}')
 
 
-def cleanup_transcript(text):
+def cleanup_transcript(text, english_compatible=False):
     text = text.replace('’', "'").replace('\u00A0', ' ')
     text = PUNCTUATIONS_REG.sub(' ', text)
     text = MULTIPLE_SPACES_REG.sub(' ', text)
+    if english_compatible:
+        text = unidecode.unidecode(text)
     return text.strip().lower()
 
 
+def handle_args():
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Importer for TrainingSpeech dataset.')
+    parser.add_argument(dest='target_dir')
+    parser.add_argument('--english-compatible', action='store_true', dest='english_compatible', help='Remove diactrics and other non-ascii chars.')
+    return parser.parse_args()
+
+
 if __name__ == "__main__":
-    _download_and_preprocess_data(sys.argv[1])
+    cli_args = handle_args()
+    _download_and_preprocess_data(cli_args.target_dir, cli_args.english_compatible)