diff --git a/w2v-server.pl b/w2v-server.pl
index edd04a4..381e81b 100755
--- a/w2v-server.pl
+++ b/w2v-server.pl
@@ -24,13 +24,14 @@
 getopt('d:il:p:m:M:'); 
 
 if($opt_M) {
-  open(FILE, "<$opt_M") or die "cannot open $opt_M";
-  while(<FILE>) {
+  open my $handle, '<:encoding(UTF-8)', $opt_M
+    or die "Can't open '$opt_M' for reading: $!";
+  while(<$handle>) {
     foreach my $mw (split /\s+/) {
       $marked{$mw}=1
     }
   }
-  close(FILE);
+  close($handle);
 }
 
 # -cbow 1 -size 200 -window 8 -negative 25 -hs 0 -sample 1e-4 -threads 40 -binary 1 -iter 15