diff --git a/bin/steps/nltk b/bin/steps/nltk
index 92f3fff7884feb00cc3010669b241db6dcae068b..b2ded51249840e55f2978e1bda6fe1113d09a6ed 100755
--- a/bin/steps/nltk
+++ b/bin/steps/nltk
@@ -21,10 +21,10 @@ if sp-grep -s nltk; then
 
     if [ -f "$nltk_packages_definition" ]; then
 
-        nltk_packages=$(tr "\n" " " < "$nltk_packages_definition")
-        puts-step "Downloading NLTK packages: $nltk_packages"
+        readarray -t nltk_packages < "$nltk_packages_definition"
+        puts-step "Downloading NLTK packages: ${nltk_packages[*]}"
 
-        python -m nltk.downloader -d "$BUILD_DIR/.heroku/python/nltk_data" "$nltk_packages"  | indent
+        python -m nltk.downloader -d "$BUILD_DIR/.heroku/python/nltk_data" "${nltk_packages[@]}" | indent
         set_env NLTK_DATA "/app/.heroku/python/nltk_data"
 
     else
@@ -32,4 +32,3 @@ if sp-grep -s nltk; then
         puts-warn "Learn more: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/python-nltk"
     fi
 fi
-
diff --git a/test/fixtures/nltk/nltk.txt b/test/fixtures/nltk/nltk.txt
index c4f6bba89dc5bb908437d12b8b0727ae4e6ca5c1..1e578bfa6942f7d8c09f2b6381e9e954a8b4eb7e 100644
--- a/test/fixtures/nltk/nltk.txt
+++ b/test/fixtures/nltk/nltk.txt
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
-wordnet
\ No newline at end of file
+city_database
+stopwords
diff --git a/test/run b/test/run
index 130b0e7bf5241d047474879d4cfa39af7a64ed2e..3064ef91c643e9a45a6eef8916aa9656c0480d27 100755
--- a/test/run
+++ b/test/run
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ testGEOS() {
 
 testNLTK() {
   compile "nltk"
-  assertCaptured "wordnet"
+  assertCaptured "Downloading NLTK packages: city_database stopwords"
   assertCapturedSuccess
 }