Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for enhanced attention mechanisms. In some implementations, data indicating an input sequence is received. The data is processed using an encoder neural network to generate a sequence of encodings. A series of attention outputs is determined using one or more attender modules. Determining each attention output can include (i) selecting an encoding from the sequence of encodings and (ii) determining attention over a proper subset of the sequence of encodings, where the proper subset of encodings is determined based on a position of the selected encoding in the sequence of encodings. The selections of encodings are also monotonic through the sequence of encodings. An output sequence is generated by processing the attention outputs using a decoder neural network. An output is provided that indicates a language sequence determined from the output sequence.