Keyboard Functions - Accents

If this is not an appropriate area to ask, I will immediately delete this.

I have a mini laptop that makes accents a complete pain to insert - and it makes it hard to become motivated to interact in, say, Spanish when you're so handicapped. Normally, I just do ALT+xxxx (whatever be the combination), but the laptop doesn't have that separate numpad. You have to press a button, then access those keys, which makes it difficult. So I thought buying a separate numpad would simplify the whole thing. Ha. So here comes the question.

*Is there anyone with a similar problem?
*Does anyone happen to have the same product and know how to use it? ((I did ask the Tech guy, and it sounds like it won't work))
*How do you handle accents? ((Is there a whole separate trick?))

Any information would be awesome :)