# Training t5 small, custom training task and dealing with unknown input

**URL:** <https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/training-t5-small-custom-training-task-and-dealing-with-unknown-input/175166>\
**Category:** Beginners\
**Created:** [April 11, 2026, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/training-t5-small-custom-training-task-and-dealing-with-unknown-input/175166 "2026-04-11T07:45:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mcaizpp2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/hellohellohello/user_avatar/discuss.huggingface.co/mcaizpp2/32/52148_2.png) [@mcaizpp2](https://discuss.huggingface.co/u/mcaizpp2)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2026, 7:45am UTC](https://discuss.huggingface.co/t/training-t5-small-custom-training-task-and-dealing-with-unknown-input/175166/1 "2026-04-11T07:45:03Z")

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Hi I have been working on training t5-small to do a cusgom task for example

Endorsement A: Fraudulent Claims Clause – SA200

and convert it to

Fraudulent Clause – SA200;

This is a very contrived example but hopefully you get the idea.

So after training the model is outputting im getting is quite good.

The problem I have come across is what the model does if it gets a pievce of text it doesnt understand -

“Hi my name is t5.”

I would like the model to output nothing. Instead T5 attempts a translation task instead.

i would really like to it output nothing in this case.

Whati have done so far

1. I played around with appending “summarize” to the input text. But i dont think this is the correct task as it “kind of” worked but removed more text from the original input than i would of liked

Any ideas of how i can handle input that doesn’t match with the specific task i am doing?

Thank you.