"아무도 없습니다."
Translation:There is no one.
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"There isn't anything" would be "아무것도 없어요." The 것 in this sentence would refer to things rather than people.
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are you supposed to use double negatives like this or would "there isn't anybody" be an acceptable translation?
"No one is here" is also an acceptable and frequently intended translation.
I didn't get why it's specifically "no one" rather than "nothing", could someone explain it?
I think it's easier to think about it more as a word that can pair with negatives. Some can and some can't. For example 누구, '(some)one/who,' can pair with both.
누구 있어요. (Some)one is there. 누구도 없어요. No one is there (literal - Even one (person) isn't there). 아무 있어요. X (INCORRECT) Anyone is there. 아무도 없어요. None are there. (Literal - Even anything isn't there.)
As for the -도 없다 being a double negative, yes, translated and seen through English eyes. But in Korean the 도 is actually here more like "even" than "not." And 없어요 is not "doesn't exist" or "isn't there" for Koreans, that's just how we translate it because we can't express this word satisfactorily in English. 없다 is a word that shows an unexistence, but without the particles or negatives we would require in English like 'un,' 'not,' 'no'. So, as unsatisfying as it is, I recommend just memorizing the patterns for 없다, as it's tough to force a logical understanding from an English grammatical perspective.
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아무 means "anyone/anybody/no one/nobody" so you can also read this as "there isn't anyone", which is the same meaning.
This is an incomplete sentence. There's no one here/there is more natural.