diff --git a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/data/lhotse_dataset.py b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/data/lhotse_dataset.py
index 608989a3417b..4cdc296eccc7 100644
--- a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/data/lhotse_dataset.py
+++ b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/data/lhotse_dataset.py
@@ -124,6 +124,7 @@ def collate_text_data(
             for k, v in text_processor._process_example(
                 context=cut.context,
                 output=cut.supervisions[0].text,
+                lang_id=cut.supervisions[0].language,
             ).items()
         }
         for cut in cuts
diff --git a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/models/modular_models.py b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/models/modular_models.py
index 5daa729847b1..82ada46685a1 100644
--- a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/models/modular_models.py
+++ b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/models/modular_models.py
@@ -90,8 +90,9 @@ def setup_ctc_head(self, cfg):
         # self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.vocabulary = ListConfig(self.tokenizer.vocab)
         # the error arises from 5303 token "${" in the tokenizer
         # use dummy vocab for now (temporary fix)
-        self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.vocabulary = [1] * len(self.tokenizer.vocab)
-        self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.num_classes = len(self.tokenizer.vocab)
+        # self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.vocabulary = [1] * len(self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.vocab)
+        self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.vocabulary = self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.vocab
+        self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder.num_classes = len(self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.vocab)
 
         self.ctc_decoder = self.from_config_dict(self.cfg.aux_ctc.decoder)
         self.ctc_loss_weight = self.cfg.aux_ctc.get("ctc_loss_weight", 0.1)
@@ -134,10 +135,6 @@ def __init__(self, cfg: DictConfig, trainer: Trainer):
         self.enforce_divisible_batch = False
         self.setup_perception_modules(cfg)
 
-        ### CTC head start:
-        self.setup_ctc_head(cfg)
-        ### CTC head end.
-
         # print out params in more details
         self.summarize(max_depth=2)
 
@@ -550,14 +547,15 @@ def loss_func(output_tensor):
 
                 loss_for_ub = (1 - self.ctc_loss_weight) * loss_for_ub + self.ctc_loss_weight * ctc_loss
 
-                logging.warning("*************"*10)
-                # logging.warning(f"batch: {batch}")
-                # logging.warning(f"ctc_head_output[0].shape: {ctc_head_output[0].shape}")
-                logging.warning(f"batch['ctc_tokens']: {batch['ctc_tokens']}")
-                logging.warning(f"batch['ctc_tokens'][0]: {self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.ids_to_tokens(batch['ctc_tokens'][0].tolist())}")
-                logging.warning(f"CTC Loss: {ctc_loss}")
-                logging.warning(f"loss_for_ub: {loss_for_ub}")
-                raise NotImplementedError("CTC loss implementation in progress...")
+                # logging.warning("*************"*10)
+                # # logging.warning(f"batch: {batch}")
+                # # logging.warning(f"ctc_head_output[0].shape: {ctc_head_output[0].shape}")
+                # logging.warning(f"batch['ctc_tokens']: {batch['ctc_tokens']}")
+                # logging.warning(f"batch['ctc_tokens'][0]: {self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.ids_to_tokens(batch['ctc_tokens'][0].tolist())}")
+                # logging.warning(f"batch['ctc_tokens_length']: {batch['ctc_tokens_length']}")
+                # logging.warning(f"CTC Loss: {ctc_loss}")
+                # logging.warning(f"loss_for_ub: {loss_for_ub}")
+                # raise NotImplementedError("CTC loss implementation in progress...")
 
                 if self.cfg.data.get(
                     "return_output_tensors", False
@@ -866,6 +864,10 @@ def restore_from_pretrained_models(
         # load audio model weights
         model = cls.load_pretrained_audio_weights(cfg, model, audio_model, speaker_model)
 
+        ### CTC head start:
+        model.setup_ctc_head(cfg.model)
+        ### CTC head end.
+
         if 'inference' in cfg:
             inference_cfg = OmegaConf.to_container(cfg.inference, resolve=True)
             model.set_inference_config(inference_cfg)
diff --git a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/parts/utils/data_utils.py b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/parts/utils/data_utils.py
index a35ba57dfe3f..8c7ab41486ff 100644
--- a/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/parts/utils/data_utils.py
+++ b/nemo/collections/multimodal/speech_llm/parts/utils/data_utils.py
@@ -265,7 +265,7 @@ def __init__(
             self.prompt_template = self.prompt_template.encode('utf-8').decode('unicode_escape')
         assert self.truncation_field in ["answer", "context"]
 
-    def _process_example(self, context: str, output: str):
+    def _process_example(self, context: str, output: str, lang_id: str):
         """
         Create an example by concatenating text and answer.
         Truncation is carried out when needed, but it is performed only on the prompt side.
@@ -318,13 +318,11 @@ def _process_example(self, context: str, output: str):
         # Labels for ctc head
         #ctc_tokens_ids = answer_ids[1:]
         # logging.warning("++++"*10)
-        # logging.warning(f"text: {text}")
-        # logging.warning(f"answer_text: {answer_text}")
-        logging.warning(f"output: {output}")
         # logging.warning(f"original_text: {original_text}")
-        ctc_tokens_ids = self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.text_to_ids(output, "en")
-        logging.warning(f"ctc_tokens_ids: {ctc_tokens_ids}")
-        raise ValueError("stop here")
+        ctc_tokens_ids = self.tokenizer.asr_tokenizer.text_to_ids(output, lang_id)
+        # logging.warning(f"lang_id: {lang_id}")
+        # logging.warning(f"ctc_tokens_ids: {ctc_tokens_ids}")
+        # raise ValueError("stop here")
 
         if self.end_string:
             answer_ids += self.tokenizer.text_to_ids(self.end_string)