Tuning keyboard (dead key) functionality in X

My preferred keyboard configuration is US-International. When I use it on MS-Windows and type certain special characters (i.e., ~ ' ") followed by a, o n I get á ó or ñ as I wish. However when I type these characters followed by a letter that doesn't match, I will get that special character followed by the letter. So if I want to type, let's say, "q I can do it by pressing "q. However, if I do the same on Gnome I need to do it like "␣q, otherwise I get an audible bell. Also, if I want to type two single quotes, in Gnome I need to type ' four times, instead of the two times it takes on MS-windows. I know it is a rather minor annoyance, but it does get to me, and I see GNU+Linux as a highly customizable OS, and I'd like to learn more about how do I do such things. Changing to the normal US keyboard is not an option, because I need to use characters such as á ó or ñ for typing in Spanish. --- note: I am using Debian