diff --git a/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/augment_data_dir.py b/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/augment_data_dir.py
index 0274350e133..9f78c7ebf62 100755
--- a/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/augment_data_dir.py
+++ b/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/augment_data_dir.py
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ def check_args(args):
     return args
 
 def get_noise_list(noise_wav_scp_filename):
-    noise_wav_scp_file = open(noise_wav_scp_filename, 'r').readlines()
+    noise_wav_scp_file = open(noise_wav_scp_filename, 'r', encoding='utf-8').readlines()
     noise_wavs = {}
     noise_utts = []
     for line in noise_wav_scp_file:
@@ -204,7 +204,7 @@ def main():
     num_bg_noises = [int(i) for i in args.num_bg_noises.split(":")]
     reco2dur = parse_file_to_dict(input_dir + "/reco2dur",
         value_processor = lambda x: float(x[0]))
-    wav_scp_file = open(input_dir + "/wav.scp", 'r').readlines()
+    wav_scp_file = open(input_dir + "/wav.scp", 'r', encoding='utf-8').readlines()
 
     noise_wavs = {}
     noise_reco2dur = {}
diff --git a/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/reverberate_data_dir.py b/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/reverberate_data_dir.py
index 37bdae82f81..28161798ee1 100755
--- a/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/reverberate_data_dir.py
+++ b/egs/wsj/s5/steps/data/reverberate_data_dir.py
@@ -377,7 +377,7 @@ def add_prefix_to_fields(input_file, output_file, num_replicas, include_original
     """ This function replicate the entries in files like segments, utt2spk, text
     """
     list = [x.strip() for x in open(input_file, encoding='utf-8')]
-    f = open(output_file, "w" ,encoding='utf-8')
+    f = open(output_file, "w", encoding='utf-8')
     if include_original:
         start_index = 0
     else: