# Can we concatenate a variable in intentions?

**URL:** <https://forum.rasa.com/t/can-we-concatenate-a-variable-in-intentions/28121>\
**Category:** Rasa Open Source\
**Created:** [April 27, 2020, 9:48pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/can-we-concatenate-a-variable-in-intentions/28121 "2020-04-27T21:48:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

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**Author:** ![amn41](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.rasa.com/amn41/32/20_2.png) [@amn41](https://forum.rasa.com/u/amn41)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 3:23pm UTC](https://forum.rasa.com/t/can-we-concatenate-a-variable-in-intentions/28121/17 "2020-05-25T15:23:54Z")

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Hi @fmelossi - in your NLU data the examples for the `ask_costo_ex_malv` intent are:

```auto
## intent:ask_costo_ex_malv
- ¿Que costo tiene el tramite? [Exención de Excombatientes](tramite)
- ¿Tiene algun costo el tramite? [Exención de Excombatientes](tramite)
- ¿Que hay que pagar? [Exención de Excombatientes](tramite)
- ¿Que se paga? [Exención de Excombatientes](tramite)
- ¿Cual es el costo? [Exención de Excombatientes](tramite)

```

which corresponds to user messages like

_“¿Que costo tiene el tramite? Exención de Excombatientes”_

Hence your intent classifier will probably only predict this intent if the message includes the words `Exención de Excombatientes`

If I remove these, so the training data is just:

```auto
## intent:ask_costo_ex_malv
- ¿Que costo tiene el tramite?
- ¿Tiene algun costo el tramite?
- ¿Que hay que pagar?
- ¿Que se paga?
- ¿Cual es el costo?

```

Then the NLU prediction works:

```auto
Next message:
Que costo tiene el tramite?
{
  "intent": {
    "name": "ask_costo_ex_malv",
    "confidence": 0.8149279952049255
  },

```

Also, it’s worth mentioning that you have a LOT of intents and only about 4-5 examples per intent. If you are just getting started with your project, I would suggest simplifying the assistant (removing some functionality) and then doing some user testing. That way you can also collect more data right away. See [this blog post](https://blog.rasa.com/conversation-driven-development-a-better-approach-to-building-ai-assistants/).

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