diff --git a/mltb2/fasttext.py b/mltb2/fasttext.py
index 8d2dda7..ee3c65b 100644
--- a/mltb2/fasttext.py
+++ b/mltb2/fasttext.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Copyright (c) 2023 Philip May
+# Copyright (c) 2023-2024 Philip May
 # This software is distributed under the terms of the MIT license
 # which is available at https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
 
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 
 import os
 from dataclasses import dataclass, field
+from typing import List, Optional
 
 import fasttext
 from fasttext.FastText import _FastText
@@ -51,12 +52,15 @@ def get_model_path_and_download() -> str:
 
         return model_full_path
 
-    def __call__(self, text: str, num_lang: int = 10):
+    def __call__(self, text: str, num_lang: int = 10, always_detect_lang: Optional[List[str]] = None):
         """Identify languages of a given text.
 
         Args:
             text: the text for which the language is to be recognized
-            num_lang: number of returned languages
+            num_lang: number of returned language probabilities
+            always_detect_lang: A list of languages that should always be returned
+                even if not detected. If the language is not detected, the probability
+                is set to 0.0.
         Returns:
             A dict from language to probability.
             This dict contains no more than ``num_lang`` elements.
@@ -76,4 +80,8 @@ def __call__(self, text: str, num_lang: int = 10):
         languages = predictions[0]
         probabilities = predictions[1]
         lang_to_prob = {lang[9:]: prob for lang, prob in zip(languages, probabilities)}
+        if always_detect_lang is not None:
+            for lang in always_detect_lang:
+                if lang not in lang_to_prob:
+                    lang_to_prob[lang] = 0.0
         return lang_to_prob
diff --git a/tests/test_fasttext.py b/tests/test_fasttext.py
index 9a1c2f8..30fc787 100644
--- a/tests/test_fasttext.py
+++ b/tests/test_fasttext.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Copyright (c) 2023 Philip May
+# Copyright (c) 2023-2024 Philip May
 # This software is distributed under the terms of the MIT license
 # which is available at https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
 
@@ -16,3 +16,11 @@ def test_fasttext_language_identification_call():
     languages = language_identification("This is an English sentence.")
     assert languages is not None
     assert len(languages) == 10
+
+
+def test_fasttext_language_identification_call_with_always_detect_lang():
+    language_identification = FastTextLanguageIdentification()
+    languages = language_identification("This is an English sentence.", always_detect_lang=["fake_language"])
+    assert languages is not None
+    assert len(languages) == 11
+    assert "fake_language" in languages