diff --git a/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue589.py b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue589.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..bf2fda72a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spacy/tests/regression/test_issue589.py
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+import pytest
+
+from ...vocab import Vocab
+from ...tokens import Doc
+
+
+def test_issue589():
+    vocab = Vocab()
+    vocab.strings.set_frozen(True)
+    doc = Doc(vocab, words=[u'whata'])