Unfortunately I don’t think the German variant works due to the verb “büffeln” being intransitive. Apart from that, the presence of inflection in German render

Unfortunately I don’t think the German variant works due to the verb “büffeln” being intransitive. Apart from that, the presence of inflection in German renders the sentence less aesthetically pleasing but alleviates the exact ambiguity that dogs the English example so I’d see it as a plus.