All of my Japanese teachers have told me that な-adjectives converted to
に-ending words and い-adjectives converted to く-ending words, when followed by
a verb, are 'adverbs'. However, sentences sound ridiculous when translated in
keeping with this principle:

> 静かにランチが食べたいです。  
>  'I want to eat lunch quietly.' or  
>  'I want to eat a quiet lunch.'
>
> 静かにしなさい。  
>  'Be quiet!' or  
>  'Be quietly!'
>
> 汚いことをいっぱい言ったくせになんなの？ 臭くなりましたか？  
>  'What's with you saying so many damn dirty things? Are you being stinky?'
> or  
>  'What's with you saying so many damn dirty things? Are you being stinkily?'
> (Obviously, stinkily isn't a word... but...)...

Is there any way I can accommodate my academic learning and my true-to-life
experience simultaneously, or do I have to surrender one of them for the
other?

Also, can you pay especially close attention to the first sentence? I'm a
little sad that I haven't been able to find the words that mean 'a quiet
lunch'. Alongside the first sentence in this post, `静かな場所でランチが食べたいです` is a
considered alternative, but it means, 'eat lunch in a quiet place'. This
doesn't comprise the implied 'peace of mind' that 'a quiet lunch' retains in
English.
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question
word-choice translation etymology particle-に parts-of-speech
Translation of "に" into "natural" English
You're wrong/doubting because you don't parse/translate correctly the
sentences.

> 静かにランチを食べたいです。

is 静かに(Adv) + 食べる, i.e., `eat quietly.`

> 静かにしなさい

is 静か(N) + にする, i.e., `make it quiet`  
or alternatively 静かに(Adv) + する, `do quietly.`  
Actually, I think both interpretations are possible here, but I'm pretty sure
the first one is the "good" one.

> 汚いことをいっぱい言ったくせになんなの？ 臭くなりましたか？

い-Adj + naru => くなる. To become Adj  
臭くなります => become stinky. `Have you become stinky/dirty?`
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You are making a big assumption which turns out to be false. That is, you are
assuming that

  * Word W1 which belongs to part-of-speech P in language L1 will always be translated to another word W2 of **the same part-of-speech P** in language L2.

This turns out to be clearly false. For example, `before` is a preposition in
English, but `前` is a noun in Japanese. `like` is a verb in English, but `好き`
is a na-adjective in Japanese. And so on. In fact, this actually should be
obvious even when thinking within one language. The sentences below roughly
express the same idea:

> I do **not** read books.  
>  I **never** read books.  
>  I read **no** books.

Here, the same negation is expressed with different words `not`, `never`, or
`no`. Are you going to claim that all these words belong to the same parts of
speech? You have to realize how ridiculous that idea is.

Once you are free from your myth, then, you should be able to accept the fact
that an adverb in Japanese does not always translate to an adverb in English.
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answer
As far as having a "quiet lunch" in the terms that you have it put in,
wouldn't 私はひまなランチが食べたいです。 Or 私はいそがしくないランチが食べたないです。

"I want to have a quiet lunch" or "I don't want to have a busy lunch". If
translated word-for-word. Though maybe I should be using にぎやか instead of
いそがしい.
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answer