You might be struggling with the consonants on your Mac when you use the ALT button to create for example an é you need to pres first ALT e to get the ‘ and than you have to press the consonants.
Just with some luck I figured out than when you press a consonant for a few seconds a popup will show up like in the picture. (Note the picture is of Word 2011 but it works everywhere in the operating system)
it makes life just a step easier and you won’t have to figure out which keyboard keys you need to use to make an certain consonant.