Trying to figure this out, is it that the first kirei doesn’t count as an ajective because it’s attached to other stuff?
Verb + ように + Verb/Adjective
Verb + ような + Noun
あの人はまるで筆で書くような綺麗な字を書けます。
That person is able to write beautiful letters as if (they were) written with a brush.
君が言うように綺麗ですね。
It is beautiful, just like you say.
Believe it or not, it was more confusing two weeks ago.
P.S. It’s really difficult to read your sentences when the readings are in parentheses like that. I’d recommend doing this instead if you really want to show the readings.
あの人はまるで筆で書くような綺麗な字を書けます。
あのひとは まるでふでで かくようなきれいなじを かけます。
Or, if you want you can use ruby tags to add actual furigana, though it takes some extra time to write up.
あの人はまるで筆で書くような綺麗な字を書けます。
Generated from the following:
あの<ruby>人<rt>ひと</rt></ruby>はまるで<ruby>筆<rt>ふで</rt></ruby>で<ruby>書<rt>か</rt></ruby>くような<ruby>綺麗<rt>きれい</rt></ruby>な<ruby>字<rt>じ</rt></ruby>を<ruby>書<rt>か</rt></ruby>けます。
I just copied and pasted, and that’s how it came out. So did you get to the bottom of it? I’m still a bit unclear. Is it only に if the adjective has nothing attached to it? If the adjective is attached to a noun is it treated as part of a noun? Is this how it works in Japanese in general?
You can think of it being:
あの人はまるで筆で書くような 、 綺麗な字を書けます。
It means that the 字 is modified, not the 綺麗. If you use に which is also correct, you will modify the verb since it will be an adverb.
It is called relative clause. 
The adjective describes
「ゲームするのが上手」なさかもとは東京に住んでいます。
Sakamoto [that is great in playing games] lives in Tokyo.
「ゲームしている」さかもとは東京に住んでいます。
Sakamoto [that plays games as a hobby] is living in Tokyo.
The sentences in brackets modify/qualify the noun.
Cheers, think I get the gist of it, something I need to work on a bit. In the past sometimes I’ve not translated the whole sentence, just chucked the grammar point in, but I’m gonna start doing it properly every time so this should start to sink in. I was always a bit shakey on the にs and なs.
No worries, with time and experience it will get easier. My advice is: if you have a problem with long sentence, try to understand the gist of it, ignoring the adjectives, relative clauses, subordinate clauses etc. Then one by one start to consider them. Kind of like babooshka toy
Just encountered this one…
彼は食べすぎたような顔をしている。
He looks like he ate too much.
I put ように because I assumed it would refer to the verb, but the answer was な。The section after the な translates as looks. So is it that noun phrases are treated as a noun but verb phrases are not, or what?
In this case, only ような will work.
The noun 顔 is clearly modified here.
He is doing a face [as if he ate too much].