There's a shortcut (alt or ctrl something) and it allows you to have different characters, what is it again?

Yeah, it's Alt and some numbers on the numpad.

Here's a useful guide for Alt shortcuts.

Naw, you hold down two keys and it turns your full keyboard into another language.

I know about the alt and numpad thing, it doesn't work in TB.

Are you talking about the character map?

(Alt+any key only works for mac.)