diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 63d1ad0..1e02813 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -51,6 +51,7 @@ Available languages
 -------------------
 
 * Arabic
+* Catalan
 * Danish
 * Dutch
 * English
diff --git a/stop_words/__init__.py b/stop_words/__init__.py
index 42a2ce2..40a45de 100644
--- a/stop_words/__init__.py
+++ b/stop_words/__init__.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 
 LANGUAGE_MAPPING = {
     'ar': 'arabic',
+    'ca': 'catalan',
     'da': 'danish',
     'nl': 'dutch',
     'en': 'english',
@@ -58,7 +59,7 @@ def get_stop_words(language):
     try:
         language_filename = '{0}{1}.txt'.format(STOP_WORDS_DIR, language)
         with open(language_filename, 'rb') as language_file:
-            stop_words = [line.strip().decode('utf-8')
+            stop_words = [line.decode('utf-8').strip()
                           for line in language_file.readlines()]
     except IOError:
         raise StopWordError(