diff --git a/src/transformers/models/marian/convert_marian_to_pytorch.py b/src/transformers/models/marian/convert_marian_to_pytorch.py
index 0eb17063c2ba77..79afd50955ddd1 100644
--- a/src/transformers/models/marian/convert_marian_to_pytorch.py
+++ b/src/transformers/models/marian/convert_marian_to_pytorch.py
@@ -677,7 +677,7 @@ def convert(source_dir: Path, dest_dir):
 def load_yaml(path):
     import yaml
 
-    with open(path) as f:
+    with open(path, encoding="utf-8") as f:
         return yaml.load(f, Loader=yaml.BaseLoader)