diff --git a/spacy/gold.pyx b/spacy/gold.pyx
index 3a5f508b4..a2d9f2f05 100644
--- a/spacy/gold.pyx
+++ b/spacy/gold.pyx
@@ -73,9 +73,15 @@ def merge_sents(sents):
     return [(m_deps, m_brackets)]
 
 
+_NORM_MAP = {"``": '"', "''": '"'}
+
+
+def _normalize(tokens):
+    return [_NORM_MAP.get(word, word) for word in tokens]
+
+
 def align(tokens_a, tokens_b):
-    """Calculate alignment tables between two tokenizations, using the Levenshtein
-    algorithm. The alignment is case-insensitive.
+    """Calculate alignment tables between two tokenizations.
 
     tokens_a (List[str]): The candidate tokenization.
     tokens_b (List[str]): The reference tokenization.
@@ -92,23 +98,52 @@ def align(tokens_a, tokens_b):
       * b2a_multi (Dict[int, int]): As with `a2b_multi`, but mapping the other
             direction.
     """
-    if tokens_a == tokens_b:
-        alignment = numpy.arange(len(tokens_a))
-        return 0, alignment, alignment, {}, {}
-    tokens_a = [w.replace(" ", "").lower() for w in tokens_a]
-    tokens_b = [w.replace(" ", "").lower() for w in tokens_b]
-    cost, i2j, j2i, matrix = _align.align(tokens_a, tokens_b)
-    i2j_multi, j2i_multi = _align.multi_align(i2j, j2i, [len(w) for w in tokens_a],
-                                                        [len(w) for w in tokens_b])
-    for i, j in list(i2j_multi.items()):
-        if i2j_multi.get(i+1) != j and i2j_multi.get(i-1) != j:
-            i2j[i] = j
-            i2j_multi.pop(i)
-    for j, i in list(j2i_multi.items()):
-        if j2i_multi.get(j+1) != i and j2i_multi.get(j-1) != i:
-            j2i[j] = i
-            j2i_multi.pop(j)
-    return cost, i2j, j2i, i2j_multi, j2i_multi
+    tokens_a = _normalize(tokens_a)
+    tokens_b = _normalize(tokens_b)
+    cost = 0
+    a2b = numpy.empty(len(tokens_a), dtype="i")
+    b2a = numpy.empty(len(tokens_b), dtype="i")
+    a2b_multi = {}
+    b2a_multi = {}
+    i = 0
+    j = 0
+    offset_a = 0
+    offset_b = 0
+    while i < len(tokens_a) and j < len(tokens_b):
+        a = tokens_a[i][offset_a:]
+        b = tokens_b[j][offset_b:]
+        a2b[i] =  b2a[j] = -1
+        if a == b:
+            if offset_a == offset_b == 0:
+                a2b[i] = j
+                b2a[j] = i
+            elif offset_a == 0:
+                cost += 2
+                a2b_multi[i] = j
+            elif offset_b == 0:
+                cost += 2
+                b2a_multi[j] = i
+            offset_a = offset_b = 0
+            i += 1
+            j += 1
+        elif b.startswith(a):
+            cost += 1
+            if offset_a == 0:
+                a2b_multi[i] = j
+            i += 1
+            offset_a = 0
+            offset_b += len(a)
+        elif a.startswith(b):
+            cost += 1
+            if offset_b == 0:
+                b2a_multi[j] = i
+            j += 1
+            offset_b = 0
+            offset_a += len(b)
+        else:
+            assert "".join(tokens_a) != "".join(tokens_b)
+            raise ValueError(f"{tokens_a} and {tokens_b} is different texts.")
+    return cost, a2b, b2a, a2b_multi, b2a_multi
 
 
 class GoldCorpus(object):
diff --git a/spacy/tests/test_gold.py b/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
index a7c29f8db..0f3112e07 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/test_gold.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ from __future__ import unicode_literals
 
 from spacy.gold import biluo_tags_from_offsets, offsets_from_biluo_tags
 from spacy.gold import spans_from_biluo_tags, GoldParse, iob_to_biluo
-from spacy.gold import GoldCorpus, docs_to_json
+from spacy.gold import GoldCorpus, docs_to_json, align
 from spacy.lang.en import English
 from spacy.tokens import Doc
 from .util import make_tempdir
@@ -175,3 +175,34 @@ def test_roundtrip_docs_to_json():
     assert "BAKING" in goldparse.cats
     assert cats["TRAVEL"] == goldparse.cats["TRAVEL"]
     assert cats["BAKING"] == goldparse.cats["BAKING"]
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(
+    "tokens_a,tokens_b,expected",
+    [
+        (["a", "b", "c"], ["ab", "c"], (3, [-1, -1, 1], [-1, 2], {0: 0, 1: 0}, {})),
+        (
+            ["a", "b", "``", "c"],
+            ['ab"', "c"],
+            (4, [-1, -1, -1, 1], [-1, 3], {0: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0}, {}),
+        ),
+        (["a", "bc"], ["ab", "c"], (4, [-1, -1], [-1, -1], {0: 0}, {1: 1})),
+        (
+            ["ab", "c", "d"],
+            ["a", "b", "cd"],
+            (6, [-1, -1, -1], [-1, -1, -1], {1: 2, 2: 2}, {0: 0, 1: 0}),
+        ),
+        (
+            ["a", "b", "cd"],
+            ["a", "b", "c", "d"],
+            (3, [0, 1, -1], [0, 1, -1, -1], {}, {2: 2, 3: 2}),
+        ),
+    ],
+)
+def test_align(tokens_a, tokens_b, expected):
+    cost, a2b, b2a, a2b_multi, b2a_multi = align(tokens_a, tokens_b)
+    assert (cost, list(a2b), list(b2a), a2b_multi, b2a_multi) == expected
+    # check symmetry
+    cost, a2b, b2a, a2b_multi, b2a_multi = align(tokens_b, tokens_a)
+    assert (cost, list(b2a), list(a2b), b2a_multi, a2b_multi) == expected
+