I failed the Thai written driving test twice. On the third try, she made me flashcards with her own drawings because she said I read road signs like they were abstract art.

I'm Australian, 39, and I've lived in Thailand for two years on my international driving permit, which technically only covers short stays. Once my visa settled and it was clear I was staying long-term, my partner Bell, 33, told me flatly it was time to get a real Thai license.

I went into the first written test convinced it would be a quick formality. I failed, by a fairly wide margin, mostly on road signs: I'd spent my whole life memorising the general shapes of Western road signs, but several Thai signs use colours and symbols that mean something different, and I mixed them up systematically on the test.

I failed a second time two weeks later, for the same reason. Bell, who up to that point had just been gently teasing me every time I came home with a long face, decided to take matters into her own hands.

She spent an entire weekend making me hand-drawn flashcards, her own illustrations of each sign because she said the official manual's photos were too small and grey to stick in my memory. She wrote notes in Thai and English on each one and made me review them every night after dinner, like a kid cramming for a school exam.

Her favourite method was flipping the cards face down on the table and making me guess the meaning before turning it over, with a small, exaggerated celebration every time I got it right and a not-remotely-sympathetic laugh every time I didn't. I found I remembered signs far better when I associated them with her drawings — fairly terrible ones, to be honest — than with the official manual's photos.

On the third attempt I passed the written test comfortably, and the practical driving test, which had worried me a lot less, I passed without any trouble a week later.

I still keep the flashcards in a drawer, even though I don't need them anymore. Every once in a while, if we're driving and pass a particularly strange sign, Bell asks me jokingly what it means, just to check if I remember. Most of the time I do, though I suspect it's more because I remember her specific drawing of that sign than because I actually studied the official Thai manual.