“I do not like anyone to intrude when I am working.”
Isn’t the use of nadie ambiguous? Let’s contrast this with “No me gusta que nadie diga la verdad”; does the speaker want the truth to be told or not?
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The use of nadie here, expresses a general bother of being intruded by anyone. Now read it without nadie, it’s specifically talking about a person (or animal) él/ella/el perro.
In Spanish double negation doesn’t imply affirmation but emphasizes the negation, in general.
The speaker doesn’t want the truth to be told. You can simply omit nadie in the two examples and this way it’s easier to understand the negation, but don’t do this, instead try changing nadie with ninguna persona.
No me gusta que ninguna persona me interrumpa cuando estoy trabajando.
No me gusta que ninguna persona diga la verdad.
Is it easier to understand?
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I find it’s easier to understand with a verb like querer: “no quiero que nadie diga la verdad”.
If I wanted to say “I don’t like it when nobody tells the truth”, how would I go about it? “No me gusta el hecho de que nadie diga la verdad”? (Should that perhaps use the indicative, dice?)
Update: On second thought, could it be as simple as “No me gusta que nadie no diga la verdad”?
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Great!
You can say it like this. The subjunctive sounds more natural.
I don’t think this use is correct, it sounds complicated and unnatural. In a double negation no comes before nadie if nadie (and other words with negative meaning) comes after the verb.
E.g. No me gusta que nadie diga la verdad (The speaker doesn’t want the truth to be told)
If nadie comes before the verb no isn’t used.
E.g. Nadie vino a mi cumpleaños
Other words like nadie that work in the same way: nunca, jamás, tampoco, nadie, nada, ninguno and en la/mi/tu/su vida.
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Here mami RAE gives you more examples:
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You shouldn’t think of each negative word as operating independently. The negatives don’t cancel but they don’t reinforce each other either (even if DRAE chooses to explain it that way). There is no difference in meaning between sentences like ‘nadie lo sabe’ and ‘no lo sabe nadie’. These sentences have a negative meaning as a whole and that’s just the way they’re constructed.
I generally don’t have a problem with double negatives, in straightforward sentences. It’s when they spill over to subordinate clauses that I find them a bit complicated.