diff --git a/llama_cpp/llama.py b/llama_cpp/llama.py
index d6fd830..b8f76e9 100644
--- a/llama_cpp/llama.py
+++ b/llama_cpp/llama.py
@@ -445,17 +445,17 @@ class Llama:
         """
         assert self.ctx is not None
         output = b""
-        buffer_size = 32
+        buffer_size = 8
         buffer = (ctypes.c_char * buffer_size)()
         for token in tokens:
-            if token == llama_cpp.llama_token_bos(self.ctx):
-                continue
             n = llama_cpp.llama_token_to_str(
                 self.ctx, llama_cpp.llama_token(token), buffer, buffer_size
             )
             assert n <= buffer_size
             output += bytes(buffer[:n])
-        return output
+        # NOTE: Llama1 models automatically added a space at the start of the prompt
+        # this line removes a leading space if the first token is a beginning of sentence token
+        return output[1:] if len(tokens) > 0 and tokens[0] == self.token_bos() else output
 
     def set_cache(self, cache: Optional[BaseLlamaCache]):
         """Set the cache.
@@ -886,7 +886,7 @@ class Llama:
         created: int = int(time.time())
         completion_tokens: List[int] = []
         # Add blank space to start of prompt to match OG llama tokenizer
-        prompt_tokens: List[int] = self.tokenize(b" " + prompt.encode("utf-8"))
+        prompt_tokens: List[int] = self.tokenize(prompt.encode("utf-8")) if prompt != "" else [self.token_bos()]
         text: bytes = b""
         returned_tokens: int = 0
         stop = (
diff --git a/tests/test_llama.py b/tests/test_llama.py
index 9701321..c240122 100644
--- a/tests/test_llama.py
+++ b/tests/test_llama.py
@@ -1,20 +1,32 @@
+import pytest
 import llama_cpp
 
 MODEL = "./vendor/llama.cpp/models/ggml-vocab-llama.gguf"
 
 
-def test_llama():
-    llama = llama_cpp.Llama(model_path=MODEL, vocab_only=True)
+def test_llama_cpp_tokenization():
+    llama = llama_cpp.Llama(model_path=MODEL, vocab_only=True, verbose=False)
 
     assert llama
     assert llama.ctx is not None
 
     text = b"Hello World"
 
-    assert llama.detokenize(llama.tokenize(text)) == text
+    tokens = llama.tokenize(text)
+    assert tokens[0] == llama.token_bos()
+    assert tokens == [1, 15043, 2787]
+    detokenized = llama.detokenize(tokens)
+    assert detokenized == text
+
+    tokens = llama.tokenize(text, add_bos=False)
+    assert tokens[0] != llama.token_bos()
+    assert tokens == [15043, 2787]
+
+    detokenized = llama.detokenize(tokens)
+    assert detokenized != text
 
 
-# @pytest.mark.skip(reason="need to update sample mocking")
+@pytest.mark.skip(reason="bug in tokenization where leading space is always inserted even if not after eos")
 def test_llama_patch(monkeypatch):
     llama = llama_cpp.Llama(model_path=MODEL, vocab_only=True)
     n_vocab = llama_cpp.llama_n_vocab(llama.ctx)