[ltp] Typing French Characters on English Keyboard

[morpheus]

Hi,
I realize this is not a Thinkpad question, but I noticed there are lots
of French people on this list, so here goes...
I'm trying to learn French, and I'd like to be able to type the accented
characters on my English keyboard.  I've tried changing the keyboard
layout, but that just re-maps the keys so they don't match what's on the
keyboard.  Is there a way to do this while retaining my keyboard layout
(which is Japanese by the way). Should I just register lots of keyboard
shortcuts using CTRL-ALT combos?
Your help is appreciated.
-m