diff --git a/icefall/utils.py b/icefall/utils.py
index 427755090..a04bedffd 100644
--- a/icefall/utils.py
+++ b/icefall/utils.py
@@ -1391,13 +1391,20 @@ def add_eos(ragged: k2.RaggedTensor, eos_id: int) -> k2.RaggedTensor:
     return concat(ragged, eos_id, direction="right")
 
 
-def make_pad_mask(lengths: torch.Tensor, max_len: int = 0) -> torch.Tensor:
+def make_pad_mask(
+    lengths: torch.Tensor,
+    max_len: int = 0,
+    pad_left: bool = False,
+) -> torch.Tensor:
     """
     Args:
       lengths:
         A 1-D tensor containing sentence lengths.
       max_len:
         The length of masks.
+      pad_left:
+        If ``False`` (default), padding is on the right.
+        If ``True``, padding is on the left.
     Returns:
       Return a 2-D bool tensor, where masked positions
       are filled with `True` and non-masked positions are
@@ -1414,9 +1421,14 @@ def make_pad_mask(lengths: torch.Tensor, max_len: int = 0) -> torch.Tensor:
     max_len = max(max_len, lengths.max())
     n = lengths.size(0)
     seq_range = torch.arange(0, max_len, device=lengths.device)
-    expaned_lengths = seq_range.unsqueeze(0).expand(n, max_len)
+    expanded_lengths = seq_range.unsqueeze(0).expand(n, max_len)
 
-    return expaned_lengths >= lengths.unsqueeze(-1)
+    if pad_left:
+        mask = expanded_lengths < (max_len - lengths).unsqueeze(1)
+    else:
+        mask = expanded_lengths >= lengths.unsqueeze(-1)
+
+    return mask
 
 
 # Copied and modified from https://github.com/wenet-e2e/wenet/blob/main/wenet/utils/mask.py