diff --git a/lib/cli/cli.php b/lib/cli/cli.php
index f449727..c20d47b 100755
--- a/lib/cli/cli.php
+++ b/lib/cli/cli.php
@@ -195,17 +195,21 @@ function safe_substr( $str, $start, $length = false ) {
 }
 
 /**
- * An encoding-safe way of padding string length
+ * An encoding-safe way of padding string length for display
  *
  * @param string $string The string to pad
  * @param int $length The length to pad it to
  * @return string
  */
 function safe_str_pad( $string, $length ) {
-	$real_length = safe_strlen($string);
-	$show_length = Colors::length($string);
-	$diff = strlen( $string ) - safe_strlen( $string );
-	$length += $real_length - $show_length + $diff;
-
-	return str_pad($string, $length);
+	// Hebrew vowel characters
+	$cleaned_string = preg_replace( '#[\x{591}-\x{5C7}]+#u', '', $string );
+	if ( function_exists( 'mb_strwidth' ) ) {
+		$real_length = mb_strwidth( $cleaned_string, mb_detect_encoding( $string ) );
+	} else {
+		$real_length = safe_strlen( $cleaned_string );
+	}
+	$diff = strlen( $string ) - $real_length;
+	$length += $diff;
+	return str_pad( $string, $length );
 }
diff --git a/tests/test-cli.php b/tests/test-cli.php
index 06540f3..c9b0f25 100644
--- a/tests/test-cli.php
+++ b/tests/test-cli.php
@@ -18,9 +18,16 @@ function test_encoded_string_length() {
 
 		$this->assertEquals( \cli\Colors::length( 'hello' ), 5 );
 		$this->assertEquals( \cli\Colors::length( 'óra' ), 3 );
+		$this->assertEquals( \cli\Colors::length( '日本語' ), 3 );
 
-		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( 'hello', 6 ) ), 6 );
-		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( 'óra', 6 ) ), 6 );
+	}
+
+	function test_encoded_string_pad() {
+
+		$this->assertEquals( 6, strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( 'hello', 6 ) ) );
+		$this->assertEquals( 7, strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( 'óra', 6 ) ) ); // special characters take one byte
+		$this->assertEquals( 9, strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( '日本語', 6 ) ) ); // each character takes two bytes
+		$this->assertEquals( 17, strlen( \cli\Colors::pad( 'עִבְרִית', 6 ) ) ); // process Hebrew vowels
 
 	}
 
@@ -28,6 +35,7 @@ function test_encoded_substr() {
 
 		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_substr( \cli\Colors::pad( 'hello', 6), 0, 2 ), 'he' );
 		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_substr( \cli\Colors::pad( 'óra', 6), 0, 2 ), 'ór'  );
+		$this->assertEquals( \cli\safe_substr( \cli\Colors::pad( '日本語', 6), 0, 2 ), '日本'  );
 
 	}