You never know when there’s going to be a leak right under your nose. In this case, Siri itself has dropped the hint that Japanese language support may be announced at next month’s iPad 3 launch event.

Asked what languages he/she/it speaks, Siri calmly and candidly replies, “I currently speak German, Japanese, French and English… but I’m always learning. You can change the language I’m using… just go to Siri settings.”

Consider your confession made, Siri, for while you profess to speak Japanese already, your settings menu on the iPhone 4S stubbornly maintains that three flavours of English (Australia, United Kingdom and United States), plus French and German are your only tongues.

Apple’s 4S voice assistant is set to get Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian and Spanish support in 2012, yet this tip from 9to5Mac is the first hint we’ve got of which to expect first and how soon. Now we just need to brush up on our Far Eastern language skills.