Would you try to make your child bilingual?

I speak only English, but I have a feeble grasp of Italian. My wife is Dutch, and she's fluent in Dutch, German and English, has basic Italian and can understand and speak tourist-level French.

I can't be bothered to Google it, but I recall reading research which indicated that if a child gets a fair amount of exposure to any second language in their early years, this causes changes in the brain which make it much easier for them to learn other languages later in life. From what we've seen with our daughter, I suspect this is true.

We lived in Italy when she was born, and we spoke English at home, although my wife occasionally spoke and sang to her in Dutch, and she was exposed to Italian when we were out and about. When she was three, she started going to a nursery school for eight hours a day, five days a week where they spoke only Italian and nobody really understood any English. In other words, the poor little kid got chucked in the deep end of the pool. The first few weeks were a little bumpy, but she picked up Italian very quickly, and she was happy during her two years in nursery and her first year of primary school. We then moved to the UK, and she went to a school where only English was spoken. She made that transition with no problems at all.

About seven years on from us leaving Italy, she's lost her ability to understand and speak Italian. However, we've noticed that even though she's not had any formal lessons in Dutch, her ability to understand the language is pretty good. This is just from her occasionally spending a few weeks in The Netherlands listening to people speaking in Dutch. She's not confident enough to speak the language, but I think that's mainly because she's a teenager.

We learn english in school from a young age in my country so when and if I have a kid he/she is going to be bilingual wether I teach it or not.

Depends on where you live and the second language. Bilingual or trilingual can be a big benefit. Especially in a work environment if you travel a lot.

I will say if you don't use it, you will find you kind of lose it.
If you study, German or Japanese or some language where you don't hear or use it much. It doesn't take long before you feel you are stumbling through it.

People should know many different languages.

I'm training to become a bilingual dude, it's mostly because now I went international with my friends.

Both my kids are bilingual English-Spanish and they say it has helped them tremendously. Knowing another language broadens your perspective and helps you generally to get along with people.

I don't have a child but I voted 'yes' because I would if I had one. I am multilingual myself and I think it's great to know at least one other language apart from your own.

My son is five years old and is bilingual. It's not something I had force on him, it's because all tv programmes here are in French and he has been exposed to it. He can switch from French to our mother tongue effortlessly.
I am trying to teach him some basic English but he does not seem to be very interested. I don't worry. English is compulsory throughout schooling here.