Python (nltk) - Unicodedecodeerror: 'ascii' Codec Can't Decode Byte

I'm new to NLTK. I'm getting this error and I've searched around for encoding/decoding and specifically the UnicodeDecodeError but this error seems specific to the NLTK source code

Solution 1:

try this... NLTK 3.0.1 with Python 2.7.x

import io
f = io.open(txtFile, 'rU', encoding='utf-8')

Solution 2:

I had the same problem with you. I use Python 3.4 in Windows 7.

I had installed the "nltk-3.0.0.win32.exe" (from here). But when i installed the "nltk-3.0a4.win32.exe" (from here), my problem with nltk.pos_tag was solved. Check it.

EDIT: If the second link doesn't work, you can look here.

Solution 3:

Duplicate: NLTK 3 POS_TAG throws UnicodeDecodeError

Long story short: NLTK isn't compatible with Python 3. You have to use NLTK 3 which sounds a bit experimental at this point.

Solution 4:

Try using the module "textclean"

>>> pip install textclean

Python code

from textclean.textclean import textclean
text = textclean.clean("John's big idea isn't all that bad.")
print pos_tag(word_tokenize(text))